Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-02-25

ing Christian, and you may escape criticism
and social pressure. But be an up-and-
down, out-and-out follower of Christ, and
wording will wink to wording as he
speaks your name, and you will be put i'll
many a doggerel and snubbed by those not
worthy to blacken your oldest shoes. When
the bridge at Ashtabula broke and let down
the most of the carload of passengers to
instant death Mr.. p. p. Bliss was seated on
one side of the aisle of the car writing down
a Christian song which he was composing,
and on the other side a group of men were
playing cards. Whose landing place in
eternity would you prefer-that of z. 2.
Bliss, the gospel singer, or of the card
players?
A great complaint comes from the the
aters about the ladies' high hats. because
they obstruct the view of the stage, and a
lady reporter asked me the other day what
Thought about it, and l told her that IT
the indecent pictures of actresses IN the
show windows of Brooklyn and New York
we're accurate pictures of what goes on Ill
it would be we'll if the ladies' hats were Il
mile high, SO as to completely obstruct the
vision. If protested Christians 20 to such
places during the week no one will ever
persecute them for their religion, for they
have none, and they are the joke of hell.
But let them live q consecrated and
Christian life andthey will soon run against
sneering opposition. For a compromise
Christian character Ill easy time now, but
for consecrated behavior grimace and carl
cature. For the body, thanks TO the God
of free America, there are now no swords
or fiery stakes, but for the souls Of thou
sands Of the good, in q tiguratiye sense,
rack and gibbet and Torquemada. The
symbol of the domestic and social and pri-
vate and public suffering of a great multi
tude of Gods dear children, pillars of
smoke.
What an exciting scene i'll India when,
during the Sepoy rebellion, a regiment of
H%ighlanders came up and found the dead
body of one of Gen. Wheeler's daughters,
who had been insulted and mauled and
slain by the Sepoys. SO great was the
wrath against these murderers that the
Scotch regiment sat down, and, cutting of
the hair of this dead daughter of Gen.
Wheeler, they divided it among them, and
each one counted the number of hairs
given him, and each took an oath, which
was executed, that for each hair of the
murdered daughter they would dash out
the life of a miserable Sepoy. But as we
look over the story of those who in all ages
have suffered for the truth, while we leave
vengeance to. the Lord, let US band together
in one solemn VOW, n tremendous oath,
after having counted the host of the mar
tyrs, that for each one of these glorious men
and women who died for the truth IN i'm
mortal soul shall live, live with God, and
live forever.
But as I already limited in the first SEN
tence of this sermon, nothing can be more
beautiful than the figures of smoke on d
clear sky. You can see what you will in
the contour OF this volatile vapor, now en-
chanted castles, now troops of horsemen,
now hammered procession, now winged cour-
iers, now a black angel of wrath under a
spear. of the sunshine turned to an angel of
light, and now from horizon to horizon the
air is a picture gallery filed with MASTER
pieces of which God is the artist, morning
clouds of smoke born in the sunrise, and
evening clouds of smoke laid in the bur-
nished sepulchers of the sunset.
The beauty of the TRANSPORTED smoke is
a divine symbol of the beauty of the church.
The fairest of all the fair is she. Do not
call those prosecutors Of whom 1 spoke the
church. They are the parasites of the
church, not the church itself. Her mission
is to cover the earth with a supernatural
gladness, to open all the prison doors, to
balsam all the wounds, to moss all the
graves, to burn up the night in the fireplace
of a great morning, to change iron hand
cuffs into diamonded wristlets, to turn the
whole race around, and whereas it faced
death, commanding it: fright about face
for heaven" According to the numbers of
the spires of the churches in all our cities.
towns and neighborhoods are the good
homes, the worldly properties and the
pure morals and the happy souls.
Meet me at any depot the world over,
and with my eyes closed take me by the
hand and lead me so that my feet will not
stumble, and without my once looking
down, or looking on the level, take me tc
some high roof or tower and let me see the
tops of the churches, and 1 will tell you
the proportion of suicides, of arsons, OF
murders, Of thefts. According as the
The most beautiful organization the world
ever saw Or eyer will see is the much ma
ligned church, the friend of all good, the
foe Of all evil, fair as the moon and cleal
as the sun" Beautiful in her author
beautiful in her mission, the heroine Of the
centuries, the bride Of Christ, the queen Of
the nations. There are hundreds of kind
ly institutions, some caring for inebriates,
some for the crippled, some for the i'm
beetle, some for the misled, some for the
blind, but the church is the mother of al
these kindly institutions. There are
asylums-American, or English, orScotch
or Irish, or French, or German, or Italian
but the church spreads her mantle ove1
all these, and will yet spread it over all ma.
tons. Her gates are beautiful, her songs
are beautiful, her prayers are beautiful, hel
convocations aare beautiful, her work is
beautiful. All kings and warriors will We
bow down at her affairs, all chains of serf.
dom be shattered against her doorstep, al
nations will yet follow her leading. How
amiable are thy ~tabernacles! How sacred
thy affairs! How glorious thy auditeriums
SO graceful, SO aspiring, SO grand, and roll.
ing on and rolling up, we cry out in regard
to her: "Who is she that cometh out O.
the wilderness like pillars of smoker"
Men may desecrate it, as Cromwell die
when he stabbed his cavalry horses in ST
Pauls cathedral; or break off the image O.
Christ. as did the iconoclasts in Yorkmin.
ster; or hurl against it august literary an.
tipathies, as did Gibbon; or plot it's over.
throw, as do some in every communit,
whose pride and hate and debauchery ar,
reproved by the ten.commandments Which
it thunders, and the Sermon on the Noun
which it breathes. But it will stand a
long as the earth stands, the same uniou,
and woodworking and beatiic and mi.
raculous thing for which God decreed Il
Small wits tax their brains to say thing
! that will ~,,k L. -